


Swerve

by PaperRevolution



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Character Death, Grief/Mourning, Loss, Multi, bereavement
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-02-27
Updated: 2013-05-27
Packaged: 2017-12-03 19:09:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/701663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PaperRevolution/pseuds/PaperRevolution
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Modern AU. The events of one November morning send the lives of nine friends spinning wildly out of their grasp. Nine become eight and loss stains the lives of those left behind after an accident none of them could have foreseen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Mainly for the purpose of diversity, some characters in this story have been genderflipped.

It starts with Enjolras, and it finishes with him.

It starts with a late autumn day and asphalt darkened by rain. It starts with a bus journey into London, to take part in a demonstration they never reach.

There are nine of them who decide to go. Marius drops out at the last minute. Grantaire, sort of surprisingly, doesn't.

The rain sheets down. Everyone's talking. Of course they are; most everyone on that bus is going to be at the demonstration. Most everyone's got something to say.

No one pays that much attention to the five boys and four girls sitting near the back. Their voices are animated; strident, even, in some cases, but no louder than those of anyone around them.

They aren't extraordinary. They aren't any different to any of the others on that bus. Grantaire, sitting with her feet pulled up onto the seat and her head resting against the window, knows that. But her friends are buoyed up by the idea of doing something. They won't shut up.

Jehan's half-listening; he's got a bright blue earphone piping music into one ear. Combeferre's reading – recently, Bahorel, of all people, has got her into sci-fi, and now she's blasting through 1984 with intermittent exclamations about the intricacy of the plot or complaints about the lack of character-depth.

The rest of them are going on about Tories and elitism and lack of opportunities for students as though it's the most important thing in the God damn world. Grantaire represses a sigh. Important, fair enough, but there's not a lot they can do about it, demonstration or not.

And anyway, she's tired. Her dad's working away again and now the house is painfully quiet. She's tried filling the silence with loud music, but you can't sleep with some old classic rock compilation blowing your eardrums out.

So last night, she'd finished the bottle of Absolut vodka that Courfeyrac left at her house the other week, and she'd read a bit, and messed around aimlessly on the internet. And now she can't keep her eyes open.

They're drifting shut, actually, when it happens, and so she doesn't really get it, at first. (Do any of them, really?)

But they're sliding in their seats; grabbing, yelling, and it's funny at first – but then the bus driver's swearing and he's obviously lost control and things are moving so fast blurring jolting churning lifting out of nowhere too fast too fast won't stop won't - 

stop.

It's all quiet, then, except for this ringing in her ears. She imagines that her eyes are sealed shut; that she couldn't open them if she'd tried.

But they're not, are they? So Grantaire opens her eyes.

The window she'd been leaning against is now the floor beneath her. The seat rises behind her in a torn green column. The roof is misshapen; concave. When you think about these sorts of scenarios in your head, everything's all dark. But it isn't like that; it's morning, and the light is steaming in through the smashed windows just the same as it was when they were whole.

People are stirring; calling out in thin, plaintive voices.

Grantaire notices things in little bursts; brief, blistering illuminations of reality; of oh my God this is happening. Courfeyrac's dark reddish hair, matted with blood. Joly's eyes opening and closing slowly; dazedly blinking. Jehan leaning over Feuilly and shaking her shoulder repeatedly; urgently, his face a little white moon of terror.

And Enjolras.

He's facedown; inert; jolted out of his seat. His right arm is bent at an odd angle. And oh God, she doesn't think she's ever seen him so still.

She wants to move, but she can't seem to make herself do it. Her limbs are weighed down; caught up; something.

Don't be stupid, she tells herself, he's okay. He's fine.

Grantaire doesn't do false hope, but there's always a first time.

Her eyes are slipping shut again. Far off, she can hear Joly struggling; thrashing; panicking. And Jehan saying Feuilly's name. And a low, half-stifled, bone-deep groan of pain from someone who might be Bahorel or Combeferre. She doesn't wait to figure it out. She lets her eyes close fully and none of it exists anymore.


	2. Chapter One

They agree to meet up before the funeral. Courfeyrac arranges it, calling and texting until he's coaxed all of them into agreeing to show up at the Musain, just as usual, at eleven o' clock.

The funeral will be at twelve.

They're a diminished group, only parts of a larger whole. They're missing Feuilly and Bossuet. They're supposed to be missing Combeferre, too, but she shows up a little late, moving like an old person, all slow and stiff.

They don't want to think about the other person they're missing.

Carolyn Grantaire skips breakfast now; lunch, too, if she can, so that maybe she might mistake the gnawing feeling in her stomach for hunger. There's a raw emptiness in her, now, like feeling too much and nothing at all, all at the same time. This morning, she staggers out of bed and into the shower with her eyes still glued shut by sleep, and afterwards throws on yesterday's clothes. She isn't wearing black. Her hair is unbrushed.

The cut on her head is already healing. She's lucky. Her mother keeps telling her how lucky she is. She's not Bossuet, whose head-injuries might change his quality of life significantly, assuming that he actually lives. She's not Feuilly, who still isn't breathing without the help of a machine and who doesn't have any family to keep vigil by her bed. She's not even Bahorel, who's not going to be returning to the girls' football team any time soon on account of the compound break in her leg, or Combeferre, who's trying to teach herself to write right-handed because the shattered bones in her left arm are going to take so long to heal. No, Grantaire's lucky.

She doesn't feel lucky.

She feels tired. She felt tired on the day of the accident, she remembers, and she hasn't stopped feeling tired since then.

She goes through the motions, mostly, but there are these awful moments of clarity that make her long for the numbness of exhaustion again.

This morning, on the way to the Musain, her steps are mechanical. She doesn't know why she's even going. On the other side of the street, she spots Joly, and ducks her head in the vain hope that he won't see her. She doesn't feel like talking just yet.

But – God, that's typical – he does see her. His hair, which literally is carrot-coloured, Grantaire always thinks, glints in the late morning sun as he crosses the street in quick, anxious steps.

“Hi, Grantaire,” he greets her, and already she has to resist the urge to roll her eyes because seriously, how has she never noticed before how gratingly high-pitched his voice is?

And now he's squinting sideways at her. “You look... really tired,” he says limply, and Grantaire laughs; a hard, plosive sound.

“I look like crap, you mean,” she says. “Yeah, I know. Not as crap as Bossuet, though, I'm guessing – apparently they had to shave all his hair off before his operation; bet he looks a right sight, now.” Maybe if she talks about the unspeakable enough; if she ploughs into it without hesitation, she'll be able to shatter the tension that's been hovering, unshakeable, over the six of them, preventing them from really talking.

“Grantaire, about today, you don't have to -”

She looks at him properly, now, her eyes narrowed almost into slits; thick eyebrows descending.

“Don't.” The word emerges a low growl. It's all she says, because it's all she can manage. She strides off ahead of him, after that, leaving him to scurry after her, bleating apologies. Idiot.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

“You're sure you don't want me to pick you up - ?”

Anna Combeferre shakes her head, ignoring the resultant twitch of consternation in her father's jaw. “Mum will want you to go with her to see -” she hates the way the words stick in her throat; it's ridiculous; they're just words, “- to see his parents.”

She can't even make herself say his name. Why can't she do that? It's stupid. She's been in and out of Mr and Mrs Enjolras' house so many times over the years that she might as well call it 'home 2.0' and have a bed there. She pauses in the act of fumbling with her seatbelt, accosted by a memory. In it, she and Enjolras are maybe eight or so. They're climbing a tree in Enjolras' back garden. Enjolras is intent on reaching the top. His face is full of fierce determination even now, so young, and his hair is a wild tangle. He did get all the way up there, she remembers. She didn't. Well aware of her limitations, she'd stopped before the branches became too supple and far apart, knowing she'd most likely fall. Enjolras has – had – always taken life full tilt. She's more careful and moderate by nature. Enjolras' school reports always called him 'engaging' and 'challenging'. Combeferre's say things like 'reliable' and 'conscientious'. She'll never be remarkable in the way the he was, and that's fine by her. That's okay. What isn't okay is that someone like him can be there one minute, so full of the future, and then gone in a second. It doesn't make sense, no matter which way she tries to think of it, and she's never had trouble making sense of things before.

“You alright?” her father's voice, laced with concern, jolts her out of her reverie.

“Fine,” she tells him tightly, eventually getting her seatbelt undone, “I'm fine. See you in a bit.”

She's hoping that will be it. She'll get out of there without having to deal with any more of this awful silence (punctuated occasionally by awkward, half-hearted questions). But the door proves even more difficult than her seatbelt, because she has to turn in her seat and her cast is bulky and just gets in the way. She can practically hear her dad's brain churning over what to say next.

“Do you -” he sounds so unsure, “Do you need some help?”

She shakes her head tersely and – oh, God, finally – manages to get the door open. Gingerly, she gets out of the car.

“Well then,” says her father, feebly, “See you later.”

Then she closes the door and he drives away.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

“I'm worried about Feuilly,” Jehan says, honestly. “I keep waking up in the middle of the night and thinking she's – she's – something's happened to her while I've been asleep.

Courfeyrac plays for time by taking a sip of still-too-hot-to-drink hot chocolate, because what do you say to something like that? For once, he's lost for words, and it makes him feel uncertain and off-balance.

“She'll be alright,” he manages, after a moment, “You watch, she'll wake up and be like, Jehan, you could've picked a more interesting book to read to me while I was nearly-dying.”

Jehan blanches at this, and Courfeyrac attempts to backpedal hastily.

“You know I didn't mean that, yeah? I was just exaggerating; being stupid. Yeah?” he says again, a touch desperately now, because Jehan still isn't saying anything.

The other boy manages a weak “Yeah,” and Courfeyrac is trying to think of a topic that doesn't involve Feuilly or Enjolras when the Musain's door swings open, sending the wind-chimes above it tinkling madly, and a familiar brown-haired girl wearing those awful thick-framed glasses steps carefully inside. Courfeyrac, overzealous in this new tenuousness, stands up and waves enthusiastically to get her attention, even though they're sitting in the same corner they always take.

“Courfeyrac, seriously,” says Grantaire, dryly, from where she's sitting at Jehan's other side. No one notices the automatic glance she sends to her left, at the seat where Enjolras would usually be sitting. No one sees the way she sags a little in her seat, dropping her chin onto her hand. They're watching Courfeyrac, who is all but flinging himself at Combeferre in an unrestrained show of mingled relief and what under normal circumstances might be called excitement.

“I didn't think you were getting out until later this week!” he says, pulling her into a hug.

“Uh – well -” says Combeferre, breathless; strained, “I suppose today counts as – special circumstances.”

“You're hurting her,” Joly says.

“Bad dog. Put the injured girl down.” Grantaire's tone is dry, but it's the first attempt at humour she's made since their arrival, and Courfeyrac, apologetically releasing a gasping Combeferre, can't help but feel a small surge of relief at this minor turn of events. Grantaire is the one person he's a little afraid to talk to, if only because he doesn't want to hear the complete hopelessness in her voice.

Nobody says anything for a minute. Combeferre gingerly settles herself into a seat and Bahorel, sitting across from her, breaks the momentary lull:

“Your mother still stressing out like crazy?”

A slightly wheezy laugh. “A bit.”

“Shit, Combeferre, your mother's neurotic. You're still alive, so-”

It's Bahorel's turn to mess up. Except, unlike Courfeyrac, she doesn't even bother backtracking and trying to smooth things out. In typical Bahorel fashion, she goes on:

“Ok, so I'm just going to say it, because no one else seems to want to. Enjolras is gone. It's shit. It's fucking unfair. But it is what it is. We can try and pretend everything's normal all we like, but he's not coming back. He's getting buried today. And that's it. So we better all stop acting like kids and deal with it.”

No one says anything.

Jehan and Combeferre are looking at her with concern. Courfeyrac looks poised on the edge of a retort.

Grantaire stands up, so quickly that her chair skitters backwards. The look she gives Bahorel is poisonous, but apparently she's beyond words, too, because she stalks out of the cafe without a word; without even stooping to pick up her bag, or snagging her coat from behind her. Courfeyrac starts after her, but Combeferre shakes her head at him, and he subsides back into his seat.

So now there are five of them where usually there would be nine. The loss of Enjolras is an acrid, tangible thing. It hangs like smoke, cloying and unavoidable. It makes their eyes sting and clogs up their throats.

And twelve o' clock ticks closer.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

It figures, Grantaire thinks, bitter without quite knowing why, that pretty much the entire town would show up for Enjolras' funeral. She spots Zephine, Dahlia and Favourite, the women who run the flower-shop just off the high-street, and wonders what the heck they're doing here. Enjolras had probably never spoken to any of them once in his life.

Enjolras' coffin is a shiny, dark reddish wood. She can't look at it without imagining the cold, rigid body inside it.

In the pew in front of hers, some of Mrs Bergham's foster kids – the Thenardier kids and a black haired boy called Mont-something-or-other – are talking amongst themselves while the organ plays. Their muffled voices fill Grantaire with a tight, pulsing rage. She doesn't believe in all that crap about disrespecting the dead (it's not like they're ever going to know; they're dead, that's the whole point), but that lot should shut up and show a bit of respect anyway.

Grantaire sits on her hands, pressing the palms against the warm wood beneath her. She thinks about how angry she is, because it's easier than thinking of other things.

The music stops. The vicar's address is dry and trite. Grantaire doesn't listen.

People read things out, ascending to the lectern with trembling hands and tight faces. One of them is Enjolras' father, who manages to keep his voice steady the whole time, though he keeps blinking rapidly as though he's trying to wake himself from an awful dream.

Enjolras' mother, a few days ago, called his friends each in turn to ask if they'd read something for him. Grantaire flatly refused. Jehan and Combeferre both read. Jehan reads some poem or other – Grantaire doesn't know or care who wrote it, and Enjolras would probably think it was a bunch of crap, anyway. The last lines, he chokes out, fairly forcing himself to finish the piece. The paper reverberates in his hands, and he bites his lip in a fruitless attempt to rein in his tears. Combeferre, for her part, fares better; she doesn't read, but talks about a memory of Enjolras from when they were younger. Her voice shakes slightly in places, and she has to briefly pause, but she doesn't cry.

They all rise to their feet. Pick up hymn-books. Open them. Sing. Enjolras' mother chose the hymn. It's something about being lambs of God, and Enjolras would've hated it, Grantaire is sure.

She doesn't cry. The roiling heat in the pit of her stomach keeps her from crying.

And then it's over. His close family are following the coffin-bearers to the cemetery for the burial itself, and everyone else is filing out into the daylight, to the humming drone of the old organ. People cry. They cling to each other. And suddenly, Grantaire realises that she wants to cry, but now that she wants to, she can't. She's dry eyed. Weightless.

She had thought today would make her feel something; some sense of finality. But it doesn't. There's just that same complete, flat lack of belief even in the face of the truth. That same refusal to accept that he is gone. Her friends gather. They immerse themselves in their pain, because it's the only way to move through it.

Grantaire can't. She's stuck. Maybe she wouldn't move on, even if she could.


	3. Chapter Two

Three days after Enjolras' funeral, Grantaire's mother decides it's time for her to go back to school.

It's a Monday. It's raining again, and the sky looks heavy. She yanks the duvet up over her head when her mother pushes open her bedroom door and, picking her way between piles of rumpled clothes, used plates and bits of paper, pulls wide the curtains and says with a firm cheerfulness: “Time for you to get up, now. You'll be late for school.”

Grantaire ignores her.

“It'll do you good to get out of the house,” her mother persists, “You need to keep busy. It's the best way. When your granddad died-”

“I don't care.” Grantaire's mumbled interjection makes her mother pause, drawing in a long, steadying breath before she goes on:

“Your red-haired friend; the one who always has a stuffed-up nose, he dropped by last night. And Toriah Bahorel phoned, asking whether you wanted to go out for a bit. I did shout you, but you didn't answer.”

Grantaire, cocooned in clinging, pillowy warmth, says nothing. There's a feeling in her stomach that might be sickness or emptiness; she isn't sure. Her eyes, when she tries to open them, don't want to stay that way; the lids drift inexorably downwards.

There is a pause. Grantaire imagines her mother folding her arms across her chest and setting her face in a determined expression. In fact, all the older woman does is close her eyes briefly and then open them again.

“Come on, Carolyn,” she says, and her voice hovers, part impatient; part coaxing, as though she doesn't quite know which tack to use. “You can't stay in bed forever.”

The pile of covers remains unresponsive. Maybe if she's quiet enough, her moth will get fed up and go away.

No such luck. Mrs Grantaire starts forward and tugs the duvet off her daughter entirely, swinging it onto the cool laminate flooring. Carolyn Grantaire curls her body inwards like a comma at the sudden rush of cold, and squeezes her eyes pointedly shut.

“I'm not,” she mutters through gritted teeth, “Going to school.”

Her mother sighs loosely. “Well then,” she responds, and her voice is even, “I'll cut off your allowance and take away your phone so you can't ask any of your friends to bring you painting supplies or beer or any of the other things you usually spend your money on.”

Grantaire considers demanding of her mother how she's supposed to care about money when Enjolras is dead, but she doesn't have the strength to argue. Maybe her mother knows this. She opens her eyes and sits up.

“Fine,” she says flatly, “Get out. I want to get dressed.”

Her mother leaves, in silence. There are no words for this.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Jehan Prouvaire hasn't written a word since it happened. He'd wanted to write something for Enjolras' funeral, but when he sat down at his desk, he couldn't make himself do it. He'd tried going out for a walk, to think, but it hadn't helped. Every sentence he started seemed trite and overused. It's something he thinks he'll regret forever, not being able to give the right words to his friend.

He's thinking about this – or perhaps trying not to think about it would be a more apt way of putting it – when he nearly runs right into Eponine Thenardier. They're in the school car-park, and the wind is blowing Eponine's limp, stringy hair into her face. She walks with shoulders hunched; head down, and somehow reminds Jehan a little of Grantaire.

“Sorry,” he murmurs. Eponine's head snaps up.

“You're the one who keeps on going and reading to Emily,” she says, abruptly. “Just so you know, Mrs B's trying to find her father. They know her mother's dead, see, but they don't know where the dad is. They figure if she dies, he should know about it.”

Jehan's mouth opens and closes soundlessly. “Do they think-” the words are strangled; he has to fight to get them out. He hasn't asked anyone this question yet, and now he knows why. It's because he's afraid of the answer. “Do they think that will happen?”

Eponine shrugs. “Dunno,” she replies. “All I know is, if there even is a Mr Feuilly out there somewhere, he obviously doesn't give a shit what happens to his daughter, else he'd have come forward already, wouldn't he?” She shoves a few strands of hair behind her ears and rocks back on her heels. Jehan realises what it is about Eponine that reminds him of Grantaire. It's the hard lines of them both. The sharp nose; set jaw; deep-set eyes. Unforgiving, blunt-edged people.

“He might not even realise he has a daughter,” says Jehan quietly, “Who says her mother even told him about her?”

A gust of wind blows Eponine's skirt back against her legs. “Dunno,” she says again, “Maybe he doesn't; maybe she didn't. Doesn't really matter either way, does it? See you later, or something.”

And then she moves past him in the direction of the Arts Block, hands stuffed into her pockets; shuffling feet churning up dead leaves. Jehan doesn't watch her go; he's staring into the middle-distance and thinking about Emily Feuilly, and how if she does wake up, she'll wake up alone.

He glances over his shoulder at the pale grey bulk of the school. There's a moment of stillness, while he's deliberating.

Then he sets off back in the direction of the school gates. He has just enough change in his pocket for a bus-ride to the hospital, though really, he thinks, given recent events, he'd rather walk.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

The shrill bell rings, signalling the end of the day's first lesson, and there is a collective tumult as students push back their chairs and get to their feet. The quiet fills with a surge of barely-muted voices. Bahorel is complaining volubly about the fact that their teachers are just carrying on as though everything's normal, and Courfeyrac is agreeing with his usual panache. Combeferre scans the room for the others – this is the only class they all have together. Grantaire is surprisingly present; Jehan is conspicuously absent.

“I'll wait for you.” Joly hovers nearby, watching Bahorel grumblingly refuse Courfeyrac's help with her crutches. Combeferre, awkwardly trying to stuff books into her bag one-handed, looks up at him and shakes her head.

“Go on,” she tells him, “I'll be there in a minute.”

Joly shuffles uncertainly from one foot to the other. He looks as though he wants to say something, but doesn't know how to broach the topic. Combeferre, reminded of her father for some reason, feels herself prickled by an unexpected and rather forcible stab of impatience.

“What?”

“Um,” Joly looks sheepish. “You... seem... I don't know, do you want to talk? About...something?”

She draws in a breath. It's meant to be deep and steadying but it catches sharply in her throat.

“No, thanks,” she tells him as evenly as she can. “I'm alright. If you need to worry about anyone, I'd worry about Grantaire.” She doesn't know why she says this; it's true, yes, but Grantaire wouldn't want anyone worrying about her. Or at the very least, she'd say she didn't want anyone worrying about her. Maybe she says it because at least if Joly's worrying about Grantaire, then he's not worrying about her, and she won't have to lie to him (which in the first place, she doesn't really want to do, and in the second place, wouldn't be able to do convincingly; Combeferre's a terrible liar).

And anyway, she adds silently, looking at his pinched, pale face, washed out by the late morning sun, Joly looks tired. They all do. They're all in the same situation, here, and no amount of talking is going to help anyone, because no amount of talking can bring Enjolras back.

The two of them are the last to leave the classroom. Outside, the busy corridor looks the same as ever. There are the same pieces of students' work tacked to the walls, framed by gaudy borders; the same shiny grey floors; the same swift, chaotic symphony of voices. How can so much have changed, and yet so little?

“D'you know where Jehan is?” is Courfeyrac's immediate question, “I swear I saw him this morning.”

Joly shakes his head.

“Maybe he needed a day off,” Grantaire mutters, “It happens.”

Combeferre doesn't say anything. She thinks she has a pretty good idea of where Jehan is, and she doubts he'd want anyone to follow him there.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

In Jehan's earliest memory of Feuilly, the two of them are twelve years old. School's over and it's summer; Jehan doesn't remember why he'd decided to go to the park. Feuilly, presumably, had been there because the rest of Mrs Bergham's lot were there. This had been before Jehan really got into reading (he'd had vague ideas about photography, back then), so he probably hadn't had a book with him, but Feuilly had. She'd been sitting with her back against the bottom of the climbing-frame, poring over a book about Ancient Rome (Jehan remembers, because it'd had colour illustrations).

He hadn't noticed her presence, at first. Then a boy; another one of Mrs Bergham's kids, who would later come to be known as Montparnasse but who at that point insisted on being known simply as M, had started taking the mick out of Jehan for his clothes. Of course. Jehan's clothes were mismatched and often too big, and too often, they made him a subject of ridicule.

He had heard behind him a soft, brisk thump; the sound of a book being slammed shut. A girl, tiny in a baggy brown jumper that if nothing else, made the young Jehan feel a bit better about his own clothes, was looking at M out of narrowed hazel eyes.

“Leave him alone,” said the girl, and M let out a raucous laugh, but she ignored him. She had the sense not to try and square up to M – for a moment, Jehan thought she was going to – instead, she offered Jehan a small smile.

“I know a better park,” she had said, “If we go now while it's busy, Mrs B won't notice I'm missing.”

This is what Jehan thinks of as he sits in the hospital with his feet pulled up onto the edge of a grey plastic chair and his arms wrapped around his knees. The memory is glossy and unreal in his mind; the sun too bright; the other children's laughter too loud. Memories, he supposes, can never really be anything more than half-real. They're just echoes. Normally, he's fine with that; normally, he's the kind of person who spends more time looking with wide, intent eyes at the things going on around him than turning his gaze inwards at things that have been and gone. But the past, he's coming to realise, is just plain easier to deal with, sometimes. The nice thing memories is, you know exactly what's about to come next.

Emily Feuilly isn't a large girl. She's not tall like Grantaire. She doesn't have Bahorel's broad-shouldered, athletic build or Combeferre's lanky, leggy one. But she looks smaller than ever, just now, and very young. Jehan can see faint bluish veins crossing the translucency of her closed eyelids. A tube feeds oxygen into her lungs. She's still in a way that sleeping people never are.

He doesn't read to her. It doesn't seem important, somehow.

He wants to talk to her, except he doesn't know what to say. What is there to say? If he was her, he wouldn't want to wake up to the reality of now.

“Please,” he says, and his voice is little and ragged. Tears dam up behind his eyes and he presses them shut. He's confronted by an awful loneliness that he knows isn't his own. Would he want to wake up, if he had no family to wake up to? No home to go to? And it isn't just this, it's everything. It's Enjolras, in the ground. It's Grantaire, coming apart. It's Combeferre, refusing to admit that she's doing the same. It's Jehan's own family, who are suffocating in their concern, but who he feels selfish for not being more grateful for. “Please.” he says again, and if this was a story, he thinks, it'd be the point where something happens; something changes.

Nothing does.


	4. Chapter Three

The local newspaper runs a story on Enjolras' death. It makes the front page, accompanied by the obligatory school photo. Not a bad picture, as school photographs go, really. This much, at least, Grantaire has time to notice before she's tearing at the front sheet, balling it up and tossing it into the bin. Her father looks at her over his morning coffee, his eyebrows raised. She gets the impression that he's trying very hard to tell her something with that look, but she doesn't care to ponder over what it might be. She stands; pours her uneaten cereal – milk and all – into the bin, and leaves.

She gets the bus to school, despite everything. It'd be stupid not to. How often does something like that actually happen? And if it did happen again, would she even care? She knows she's being self-indulgent; over-dramatic, even, but she can't stop herself and doesn't feel like trying. She watches houses and the occasional tree slide past. Red-orange bricks; grey bricks; suburbia. Everything looks the same.

Enjolras' stop is the worst. She hates him for being on her bus-route.

She keeps trying to find reasons to hate him, never with great success.

Last night, she dreamt of him. He'd been drinking, which is stupid, because Enjolras never drinks – never drank – but who said dreams were supposed to make any sense, anyway? His breath was musty-sharp and there were bright spots of colour in his cheeks. He sat on the edge of her bed; reached out and took her hand. He held it with a sure, steady firmness at first, but then his grip became tighter and tighter until she felt the shift of her bones. When she tried to tell him to let go, she couldn't. When she'd woken up, her discomfort and unease had been so intense that she'd been tempted to try and look up the meaning of it on her phone's internet, even though she doesn't believe in dream interpretation.

Somehow, life is doing its best to continue as usual. Her classes are all the same, though her teachers assure her that all she needs to do is ask, and she can have help with catching up (she doesn't ask; obviously). The sameness of everything is unsettling; it feels to her as thought it won't be long before Enjolras is forgotten entirely. How can that be? How can someone so full of verve and vigour disappear so completely?

In registration, she drops into a seat beside Toriah Bahorel. The other girl swings backwards on the legs of her chair, looking thoroughly bored. Normally, she'd catch Grantaire's eye; today, she doesn't bother.

A piece of paper lands on the blank grey surface of Grantaire's desk. It's a torn corner; a rough, uneven arc where it's been ripped away from the rest of the sheet. It takes her a moment to identify the wobbly writing as Combeferre's; her usual neat italics have been ousted by the presence of that bulky cast.

Can I talk to you, after reg.?

Who even writes notes in full, punctuated sentences, anyway? Grantaire flips the scrap of paper over and scrawls on its other side:

My eight-year-old cousin can write neater than you, C. give it up. Don't feel like talking.

She passes the note to Courfeyrac, on her right, and from him it makes its way over to Combeferre. Out of the corner of her eye, Grantaire watches the other girl read her response; sees the way her brows furrow into a frown. She tucks the bit of paper into her notebook. Grantaire begins to look away, but is not quite fast enough; Combeferre catches her glance – holds it, her face carefully expressionless. Grantaire finds herself feeling irrationally irked by this. Why? Does she want Combeferre to react? What does she expect her to do, exactly?

She is pushing everyone away, and she knows it. She watches herself as though from far-off, feeling nothing but a vague sense of guilt.

The bell rings. Chairs move. People rise. Grantaire goes with them.

There is a mechanical rhythm to things, these days. It's almost comforting.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Grantaire's English teacher is droning on about the use of symbolism in Macbeth when there is a soft knock at the door. It swings open, a moment later, to reveal Miss Manning, the secretary, with her too-bright lipstick and her patent heels.

“Could I borrow Carolyn Grantaire, Jehan Prouvaire and Anna Combeferre for a while, please, Mr Bellingham?”

Mr Bellingham nods and waves a vague hand.

“Go ahead,” he says, “Take as long as you need.”

Jehan's face is very white. Combeferre's breath catches.

Grantaire's footsteps feel heavy. She is walking through water; it's difficult to push through, but there's no undertow. What could they possibly tell her, that's any worse than what she's already going through?

Courfeyrac, Joly and Bahorel are already seated in the headmaster's office when they arrive. There aren't enough chairs, and there's an awkward moment wherein Courfeyrac and Joly both stand up at once so that one of the newcomers can take their seat. In the end, Grantaire is the one who remains standing. She's not bothered, she says with a staccato shrug of her shoulders.

The headmaster looks at them over his clasped hands. His blue eyes are watery and set too far apart. His voice, when he speaks, is a little wheezy.

“I'm very sorry to have to tell you this,” he says, “But Joseph Lesgles died in the early hours of this morning.”

Joly makes a small, wordless noise somewhere between a gasp and a sob. His shoulders slump; he seems to fold in on himself – to become somehow smaller. 

“I'm truly sorry,” says the headmaster again. “You must know that they did everything they could, at the hospital, for him.”

Bahorel makes a derisive sound at the back of her throat.

“We know,” says Courfeyrac, more to fill the awful silence than for any other reason, “Of course they did.”

Joly is sobbing silently, now, his shoulders trembling.

“I'd like to go, now,” Combeferre tells the headmaster in a flat little voice, “Is that alright?”

The headmaster nods. Combeferre stands up; she fixes her gaze on the floor and presses her mouth into a tight line, and Grantaire realises with a sort of dreadful thrill that the other girl is, herself, on the verge of tears.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

She feels blood pounding in her ears as she walks home. Her footsteps are quick and even; she walks with her head ducked, as though braving a strong wind. It doesn't take long to get from the school to her house, but it seems as though hours elapse between her walking out of the headmaster's office and this moment, now, pushing open the garden gate and making her way up the narrow path. The front lawn is neatly mown. The window-boxes, it being winter, are empty.

At the door, she struggles to extricate her keys from her bag one-handed. Actually, the rigid and cumbersome cast keeping the bones of her arm in place doesn't bother her so much as the dull ache in her chest – cracked ribs – which sharpens every time she inhales too deeply.

The downstairs hallway is cool and dim. Anna Combeferre shuts the front door quietly behind her and leans back against it. The house is very quiet; both of her parents are at work.

She didn't cry, when she was told that Enjolras had died. Since then, she's been walking around in a chill numbness; a sort of daze. And it's odd – it doesn't make any sense – because she's never even been particularly close to Joseph Lesgles, but somehow, knowing that he, too, is gone, has released some tight, strained knot inside of her.

She tilts her head back against the smooth, varnished wood of the door. There's no point in crying – she knows this. It won't change anything – she knows that, too. But it isn't one of those things you can just decide not to do just because there's no point. She sees that, now. And she cries – pitiful, half-restrained and plaintive, at first. Then real, wracking, choking sobs. She had thought that she'd resigned herself to the fact that Enjolras is irretrievably lost. She is not resigned. It doesn't make sense – it's ridiculous – but she's not. 

She stumbles away from the door; up the stairs to her room. If her mother comes home for lunch, the way she sometimes does, it won't do for her to see her like this.

-oO0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Today's news brings to Jehan not only grief but a fresh wave of concern for Emily Feuilly. What if she, like Joseph Lesgles, never wakes up? After school, Jehan finds himself heading almost automatically in the direction of the hospital. How long has it been, now? More than two weeks. Probably closer to three.

The nurses know him, now. There is a different kind of sadness in their eyes – no longer arbitrary – when they tell him that there's been no change.

He does not talk, today. He is running out of things to say.

He waits, and feels foolish for waiting.

At about four o' clock, a man appears in the doorway. He's thin, not particularly tall, with a wispy brown beard and a pair of small, close-set hazel eyes that look vague and distant with fatigue. Something – keys, maybe, or loose change – clinks in the one of the pockets of his long khaki coat.

“Am I in the right place?” his voice is smoke-roughened, “I'm lookin' for a girl named Emily. That her?”

Jehan, not usually a distrustful sort of person, eyes the stranger guardedly.

“Yes,” he tells him, after a moment, “Who're you? If you don't mind my asking.”

“I'm Eliot Feuilly,” the man says with a humourless laugh, “I'm her father.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: this chapter discusses illness/neurological things at length, in the latter sections.

Grantaire sits on her bedroom floor, the bobbled vertebrae of her spine pressed against the side of her bed. For the first time since Enjolras, there's a bottle in her hand. The taste is acrid and she doesn't even want it that much, right now, but she's drinking because there's nothing else to do and because she's sick of the drilling, monotonous clarity of being sober.

By her right foot, there's a crumpled grey hoodie. She hasn't worn it since Before. This is her life, now; Before and After; Now and Then. With and Without.

She tilts back her head. Her throat burns and her eyes burn. Downstairs, the low hum of the television goes on and on, her parents filling the house with the sounds of some meaningless soap opera. She drums the fingers of her free hand against the bare floorboards. Restless. She needs to do something.

Grantaire drains the bottle and stands up, using the bedpost to lever herself to her feet. She sets the bottle on her bedside cabinet, not even bothering to obscure it from view, and leaves.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Outside, it's cold, but not especially so. Grantaire tucks strands of stringy, unbrushed hair behind her ears and sets off in the direction of Enjolras' house.

While she walks, she doesn't think. The pounding of her feet on the pavement vibrates up through her body. Objects appear closer; bolder, than they really are.

It takes her ten, maybe fifteen minutes to reach the house. Enjolras' father's company car sits in the driveway like some huge, dormant insect. The curtains at Enjolras' front-facing window are shut, but all the other curtains are open.

Grantaire feels sick. There's a rancid taste at the back of her mouth. Her hands are shaking, so she stuffs them in her pockets.

She hasn't seen his parents since the day of the funeral, and even then, she didn't speak to them.

Further down the street is another familiar house. Combeferre's bedroom window is lit warm yellow. Grantaire would seriously consider going over there instead, backing out at the last second, but Combeferre's mother hates her openly (as openly, anyway, as a woman who is all pinched expressions and tight-lipped smiles and peach-coloured cardigans can actually manage).

The wind tugs at the folds of Grantaire's t-shirt. No point waiting out here in the cold any longer, it seems to say. Might as well do it; get it over with.

She doesn't pull in a steadying breath or square her shoulders. What would be the point? And anyway, her body feels heavy and unresponsive as she pushes open the garden gate and makes her way up the narrow path.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Enjolras' mother comes ot the door. She's petite where her son was tall, and her eyes are ordinary brown rather than bright, chill blue. She's wearing the oddest assortment of clothes Grantaire has ever seen her in – the sort of pinstriped shirt you'd wear for work (or for school, if your name happened to be Anna Combeferre), coupled with a pair of baggy checked things that look as though they might actually be pyjama bottoms. Her pale hair is pinned neatly back from her face, but her eyes are tired.

“Oh,” if she is surprised, she doesn't show it. “Carolyn. Hello. We were wondering when you might stop by, actually.”

Grantaire ducks her head fractionally; an old habit.

“Can I come in?”

Wordlessly, Enjolras' mother moves aside for her. Grantaire steps inside and shuts the door behind her, slipping off her boots (old rule, still remembered). Mrs Enjolras' eyes rest on her expectantly, as though she's waiting for her to speak.

Grantaire straightens up; forces herself to look the older woman in the eyes.

She realises that she has no idea what to say. Silence crackles like static in her ears.

“Why don't you come into the kitchen?” to her credit, Mrs Enjolras is at least making an effort to be normal. “I can make you a coffee, if you'd like.”

Grantaire nods. That's good enough for her. Enjolras' father will be in the living room. The longer she can avoid seeing him, the better, as far as she's concerned.

The kitchen is large and stark, with granite worktops and an enormous stainless-steel refrigerator in one corner. The table is a glass-topped thing whose legs are a tangled mesh of weblike metal struts. As a rule, Grantaire really couldn't give a shit about interior decorating, but she's never liked this kitchen. There's no warmth in it.

The quiet stretches out, punctuated by the soft clink of cups.

“So,” Grantaire struggles for words, “Sorry I didn't come sooner. I wanted to. I just kind of...I didn't know if you'd – I mean, if it'd be okay, or what.”

This is a lie. The reason she hadn't come sooner is that she's been scared of what she'll feel, coming back here.

“I understand,” Enjolras' mother nods without looking at her. “It's – well, it's been hard for us all. I don't -” she stops herself, and doesn't go on.

Her pain is a serrated knife edge. It makes Grantaire feel cramped and uncomfortable. There isn't room for two people's suffering in this kitchen, however spacious it might be.

Coffee is poured. Mrs Enjolras' hands tremble. She brings the cups to the table, sits, and motions for Grantaire – still hovering in the doorway – to do the same.

Obediently; mechanically, Grantaire sits.

Obediently; mechanically, she takes a sip of her coffee. It's too hot, searing the back of her throat on its way down. She fights the urge to splutter.

“I told him not to go,” Enjolras' mother says suddenly; flatly, “I was worried about him getting – getting hurt or getting into trouble at the demonstration or whatever it was. I didn't think – I mean, you just don't think do you? It wouldn't occur to you that something like this could happen even before he got there.”

Grantaire shakes her head. Still, she has nothing to say. There doesn't seem to be any point in trying to offer comfort.

“He wouldn't have listened to you, no matter what you said,” she hears herself telling Mrs Enjolras, after a protracted pause, “He'd got the idea in his head, and that was it.”

She laughs humourlessly. Her hands curve around the cup, but she doesn't lift it to drink. Grantaire is caught between watching her and trying not to watch her. It is too easy to see traces of her son in her face and bearing.

“Did he talk about me?” Impatience and liquid courage render Grantaire with a bluntness, almost aggressive, which is both new and familiar. “To you? Did he ever mention me?”

Mrs Enjolras' eyes pull wide, and then in the next second go very narrow. There is a horrible moment where she doesn't say anything. Then:

“Well, yes, he did. To be perfectly honest... I think he cared about you, but didn't understand you. And he did want to. Understand you, I mean. But he was frustrated. He felt he couldn't reach you. But,” she adds again, pitchy and plaintive, “he did care about you.”

Grantaire stares down at her knees. Her face feels hot; the rest of her feels very cold. There's this scratching, pulling, building feeling in her throat, like pressure, but sharpened and raw. If there's a name for what she's feeling, she doesn't know it.

A source of frustration. Unreachable. And as far as he's concerned, she's frozen like that. Even if she could change, which doesn't seem likely, it's not as if he'll ever know.

She shouldn't be surprised by any of this. She shouldn't care.

Grantaire bolts up out of her seat, scraping it back across the dark tiles. “I'm sorry,” she mutters, though she isn't, really – there's too much going on inside her head for her to be sorry at all. Then she's stumbling in her haste to leave, ignoring Mrs Enjolras' insistence that she come back and sit down. There are times when reality hits her like a roaring, crashing wave and she can do nothing but let it sweep her along into some safe, quiet place where she can forget everything and feel nothing. And there it is, a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. She's going to continue being that frustrating, unknowable person, because it's easy. Because what else can she do? Enjolras' death has torn a raw strip from her, exposing oozing, stagnant, pockmarked skin beneath, showing no signs of healing.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Jehan is trying to catch up with his Science homework – he's hopelessly behind, and he's never been much good at physics, anyway – when his phone rings. It's on his bed, and he scrabbles to find it amid haphazard sheaves of paper. Joly's number lights up the display.

He feels a guilty flash of trepidation. What if Joly wants to talk about Bossuet? Jehan doesn't feel able to talk about Bossuet, just now.

He answers the call.

“You're there,” Joly says unnecessarily. His voice crackles with static and perhaps something else, too. “Jehan – I'm – I'm at the hospital. I think you should come.”

Jehan's stomach clenches. Vaguely, it occurs to him that maybe he should sit, but he's frozen to the spot.

“What's going on?” he breathes into the phone, tight-voiced.

And then – and then - 

“Feuilly's awake,” says Joly.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

When she wakes up, it's not gradual. It's a rush of too-bright colours and sounds and voices and struggling and gagging and sputtering around breathing apparatus. It's like – it's like coming up from underwater only to find that a storm is still raging above you. Then someone's there to help her and people are talking at her and - 

The second time she wakes up, there's a boy. A boy she knows, red-haired and skinny with an Adam's apple which bobs when he talks. His name. What's his name? J? J-something. She blinks at him and his eyes go wide and then he's saying something, only it's too fast and she doesn't know what it is and - 

Time moves in clotted flashes. It doesn't make sense. It doesn't feel real.

“...to me?” a stranger in white is saying, “Can you...ing...-for me?”

“Wh...” she gets out. “Uh?”

The red-haired boy's face looms in front of her. There are those things – little dots – on the bridge of his nose.

She wants to ask him what happened; where she is. Everything's white.

“Happened,” is what comes out of her mouth, her voice thick and cracked and unfamiliar, “White?”

The boy bites his lip. His face becomes, if possible, even paler.

“What's wrong...her?” she hears him ask, far off. Wrong. Wrong. She knows that word. Wrong. Not right. Something isn't right. She can't – can't – words talk know – underst...understand.

Emily Feuilly begins shaking uncontrollably.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

When Jehan arrives, Joly is sitting on the bed beside Feuilly, who herself half-sits, half-lies, propped up by pillows. She looks somehow worse than she had done before; now there is an ashen cast to her skin. A nurse with a kindly face and short, dark auburn hair sits in a chair near the door. When Jehan enters, the nurse musters a smile for him, but neither of his friends do.

Feuilly's eyes widen at the sight of him and she stiffens visibly.

“No,” she says, “No – don't – want – no.”

The sound of her words – chopped; incoherent – sends a cold thrill of pure horror down his spine. That's putting it a little dramatically, maybe, but there it is.

“She can't talk,” says Joly in a small voice, “Not properly. I don't -” his voice catches, “I don't know if she can understand me.”

Jehan's shaking his head. “What d'you mean, she can't talk?” he takes a halting step forward, “Feuilly.” And then her first name, which he almost never uses, “Emily.”

“Talk?” she repeats, barely audibly, and begins to cry.

He's suppressing tears of his own as he goes to sit on her other side. She's shivering, thin shoulders clenched. He wants her to lean into him, so he can offer some sort of comfort, but she doesn't.

“Can't you -” in a bizarre and horrible parody, Jehan finds that he, too, is lost for words. “Can you fix this? I mean, can you help her? I mean, will she -?”

The nurse looks at him steadily and solemnly.

“Someone will be here, soon, to talk to you,” she says.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

These are the things Jehan learns this afternoon: Aphasia is a thing which sometimes happens after head trauma. It affects communication, both spoken and written. Often, the sufferer will know what they want to say, but not how to say it. There are things which can be done. There is progress. In some cases, a full recovery can be made.

Jehan listens to all of this and feels tears damming up behind his eyes. He thinks about Feuilly's aggrieved eloquence; her rants over suppressed and subjugated nations. He thinks about the copious amount of books she reads. Thinks about her place on the school debate team. And he thinks of how hard – much harder than most, owing to her background – she had to work for all of that.

She is maybe the worst person for something like this to happen to.

Six o' clock. Jehan has been at the hospital for almost three hours. He has spent a long time in the waiting area, and then some more time listening to the quiet, grave-voiced doctor. He is told that it's probably best if he goes home, now.

He's just leaving when the double doors at the end of the corridor swing open. A man in a shapeless khaki coat is walking towards him.

Jehan recognises the man immediately, though he has only met him once before. This is the man who claims to be Feuilly's father. His face is inscrutable. He nods brusquely to Jehan, and goes on walking right past him. Jehan thinks of calling out to him; of saying something cool and curt and Enjolras-like. “Took you long enough,” perhaps, or simply an interrogative “Where have you been?”

But he doesn't say either of those things. He watches the man go by and thinks that although there is more than one way to be left without words, all ways amount to the same thing: without a voice, you are powerless.


	6. Chapter 6

Grantaire's father, home briefly after the accident, is working away again, now, somewhere in Lancashire. It's just her and her mother again, then. They sit at the kitchen table, cold meat and gravy congealing on Grantaire's plate because the food sticks in her throat and she doesn't feel like eating.

“I saw Cathy Bergham today,” says Grantaire's mother, with the air of someone who has been bursting to impart this information since the moment they sat down, but has been restraining herself. “She came into the shop with one of the littler kids she looks after.”

“Yeah.” Grantaire knows where this is going, and she isn't about to help her mother get there. She stares stonily across the table at her.

“Why didn't you say something to me?” her mother presses on, “I didn't realise you even knew. God, that poor girl.”

Grantaire drags her fork irritatingly across her plate. Here it goes, she thinks, weary and irritable and not at all in the mood for this conversation. “Bet you wish it was me,” she keeps her voice carefully toneless, and her face impassive, knowing that this, more than anything, will goad her mother. “It'd make things a lot easier for you if I couldn't answer you back properly, wouldn't it?”

Rebecca Grantaire puts down her glass of water forcefully. It makes a dull, final sort of thud. “Carolyn,” she snaps out, “That is more than inappropriate.” But as quickly as she'd flared up, she sags in her seat, shoulders drooping. Her brown eyes flick up towards her daughter and then down again towards her plate. “Is that where you went today? To see Emily Feuilly? Because I know you weren't in school.”

“No,” Grantaire says flatly, putting down her knife and fork and pushing her plate away from her.

“Well, don't you think maybe you ought to?”

Grantaire stands up, chair-legs screeching back against the laminate flooring. “Don't you think it's none of your fucking business?”

“Carolyn!”

But she's not listening; she's already at the door, shoving it open with more force than is necessary and letting it slam shut behind her. Her feet thunder on the stairs. Her bedroom door is shut and she wrenches it open, kicking piles of clothes and books out of the way; overturning an empty bottle and a not-empty cup of coffee. In her balled-up anger, boundless and undirected, she's oblivious to the brown stain spreading across her carpet. It's satisfying; she kicks out again. When her foot connects with the wardrobe door, she half-expects the wood to crack under the impact, but it doesn't even splinter. So she sinks down onto her bed and lies back, hands clasped behind her head in an attempt to keep them from shaking.

She's not even sure why she's so angry. Until now, she's just been filled with a sort of damp numbness. What has changed? Is it that now all anyone will talk about is the great tragedy of Feuilly when Enjolras still hasn't even been in the ground long enough for his grave to have a marker yet? Is it that – and this is stupid and wrong – she feels that in a way, she's lost another of her friends? Maybe it's just the relentlessness of this whole situation. Maybe it is finally hitting her – not hitting, maybe, but stabbing, like awful pins-and-needles after that all-consuming numbness – that none of them are ever going to be quite the same people they were before. She rolls over onto her side, facing the blank wall, and squeezes her eyes tightly shut. She waits desperately, though she's not even tired, for sleep to come.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Doctor Hartley confirms his suspicions and Feuilly, after hour piled upon hour of brain scans; tests; attempting to answer questions, is at least finally left alone. She is tired of people, and this in itself is new. Sometimes they talk slowly and she feels bitter, acrid irritation rising in the back of her throat because for God's sake, she's not stupid. And then she'll be unable to follow something else they've said and feel inadequacy creep over her like a cold, rolling feeling. Worse perhaps is that she can find no name for most of these feelings – no way to describe them even to herself. There is a difference between knowing things and being able to articulate them; she has lost none of the things she knows, but now most of them are locked up tight inside her head.

She has never considered herself someone who cries a lot. Now she cries intermittently, when there are no people around and sometimes when there are. It has been a day since she woke up, but seems much longer. Now she's tired (another word she has to scramble for; “tired”), and she wants to sleep.

She's barely closed her eyes when the door opens, its clear plastic pane rattling slightly. For a brief moment, she considers pretending to be asleep.

Footsteps; then the protesting squeak of a plastic chair. Feuilly opens her eyes.

“Hey,” says the man from yesterday who says he is her father. “Your friends from yesterday been to see you today?”

“No. School,” exhausted, she has to work even harder for the words.

“So, that boy with the curly hair and the disgusting shirt; he seems pretty keen on you,” the man lets out a dry chuckle.

“No – he - ” she struggles to pull herself into a sitting position, buying herself time. Finally, she settles for one word: “Friends.”

He laughs again. “Yeah? Good job, really, isn't it? And good job I'm here, too, now.”

She looks at him.

“I mean,” he goes on, “It's not like that Bergham woman'll let you stay in her house forever, and I don't see how you're going to get a job when you can't string a sentence together. So you know. You're pretty lucky I showed up, I'd say.” He smiles thinly; humourlessly.

Feuilly gets “let you stay”, “get a job”, “string a sentence together” and “lucky I showed up”. The rest of the words run together, but that's more than enough, really. More, far more, than she needed.

“Don't,” she tells him, her voice cracking.

“Well, it's true,” he goes on, “Still, you can stay with me. Better late than never, right?”

Feuilly says nothing. The words – all of them apart from 'late' – merge meaninglessly. She'd do anything rather than admit that she hasn't understood him. She watches his face, discerning consternation and smugness and bitterness and tiredness, there, and finding words for only the latter two things.

“You look like your mother,” his eyes narrow slightly and become curiously intense when he says this. And still Feuilly is silent, this time out of choice. She feels that she would rather not know about her mother at all than learn about her from him.

“Given up for the day, have you?” he pats her hand, “Well, I've got to say – not much company, are you? Good thing I'm pretty patient.”

He keeps saying that; “Good thing”. There's nothing good about him.

She watches him get up and leave. He pauses in the doorway to throw back a casual “See you, Emily.” Then he's gone and she feels as though she's waiting to see if she'll cry again. She doesn't. There's a heavy, hollow coldness in her chest; a dread feeling, settling down for the night.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

“Anna,” Mr Bellingham says to Combeferre as she's packing her things into her bag, “Could I have a word?”

She straightens up to look at him. “Er. Of course.”

The English teacher waits until the rest of the class have filed out, chattering amongst themselves, before he speaks again.

“I know you may not want to discuss this with me,” he begins, and Combeferre feels herself tensing. “But I have to say, I'm a little concerned about you.”

She forces herself to be rational. “Why? I'm doing everything I need to do. I'm handing all my work in on time. Is it up to standard?”

Bellingham lets out a heavy sigh. “Your work is fine,” he tells her, his voice uncharacteristically gentle, “That's actually the problem. You've been through a great deal, and you're carrying on as normal. You haven't missed a day of school since the week after the accident, and you're obviously putting in every effort not to let what happened affect you.”

She stares at him; at his shiny pink nose and pouchy old-man cheeks. “Then, what's the problem?”

He adjusts his tie, avoiding her gaze.

“How can I put this?” he begins, delicately, “Well, you act as though you are bearing up very well, but you do not look as though you are. You must know what I mean. You'll run yourself into the ground, if you aren't careful. You need to speak to someone.”

Combeferre shakes her head, flyaway curls bouncing. “Thank you for your concern,” she tells the teacher, “But I'm fine. Really.”

Then she's picking up her bag and all but rushing from the room before he has a chance to reply. Her eyes burn behind her glasses, and she ducks her head, afraid of what will happen if she looks at anyone directly.

In a girls' bathroom, she splashes water onto her face. Mr Bellingham is right – there is a sallow cast to her skin and her eyes are ringed by sleepless shadows, the faded grey-purple of a bruise. She's been wheedling at Grantaire to eat more, but she has herself become very thin. The girl in the mirror has hollow cheeks and sharply jutting collarbones. Her jacket is creased every which way; she supposes her shirts would be, too, if her mother didn't iron them. Now she is all hard edges, like Enjolras.

She shakes her head and drags her hand through her hair, irritated with herself for being self-indulgent.

Combeferre goes back out into the corridor like a sleepwalker, perfectly calm.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Going into the hospital, Jehan runs into Eponine. She looks distracted and unusually pensive, tugging the sleeves of her ratty beige hoodie down over her hands.

“Hi, Eponine,” he greets her, a little warily. Eponine's head bobs up in surprise.

“Hey,” she responds, “So, I have a question for you.”

“What is it?” the slight lift in his voice belies his surprise.

She stops walking, shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other. “So, like... this sounds awful, but...” she tucks her hair behind her ears, eyes darting away, “Ok, I don't want to just stop talking to Emily, or anything, but I don't really know how to talk to her. I mean, what am I supposed to say? And like, I don't know how much she can understand me.”

Jehan's level of surprise racks up a notch. In the first place, the fact that Eponine Thenardier is admitting she cares on any level is surreal enough. And secondly, has anyone even really told her what's going on?

So he takes time to explain to her what little he does know, omitting, of course, the fact that his father found him sobbing convulsively over the research he'd been trying to do on his laptop. Eponine stands with her arms folded, listening and nodding and occasionally interjecting. When he's done, she says bluntly:

“Well, fuck. I'm glad I'm not her.” She pauses, then continues: “Did you know her dad's still hanging around?”

“Yeah,” he tries, perhaps not altogether successfully, to keep his voice neutral, “I saw him the other day.”

Eponine lets out a derisory snort. “What a creep,” she opines, acidly spitting out the last word, “He's got this way of looking at you, you know, like he's looking through you. Like you don't matter. And he stinks of alcohol worse than your loser friend.”

Jehan manages to be vaguely indignant over this description of Grantaire, but doesn't contradict her. “He doesn't seem very nice,” he agrees, and Eponine laughs again.

“That's one way to put it,” she replies. Then, uncrossing her arms and pushing herself off from the wall she's been leaning against, she tells him a quick goodbye and leaves. He watches her retreating form get slowly smaller and then disappear around a corner, and thinks about how people, just when you think you know them, can begin to surprise you.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

He finds Feuilly sitting up in bed, and realises with a horrible jolt that, like Eponine, he is not entirely sure how to go about talking to her.

“I just saw Eponine,” he starts, his words measured; not slow, but not fast, either. He crosses the room and drops into his usual chair with the smallest of sighs.

“She didn't - ” Feuilly pauses, then goes on, almost hurriedly, “- be here a long time.” She doesn't seem to want to meet his eyes. Jehan's throat constricts – she's ashamed, he realises.

Abruptly, he stands up. “Come on, move over,” he musters a smile and, when she complies, sits down beside her on the bed, pulling his feet up regardless of the white sheets. “Eponine wants to talk to you, you know.”

“I know.”

There's a brief silence. Then she says:

“All the others – where?”

Jehan gulps down a sick feeling at the back of his throat. His stomach muscles tighten; briefly, he has the sensation of wanting to be physically sick. This moment has arrived far more quickly than he'd hoped or wanted it to.

He remembers reading something about names being particularly difficult to recall, so he doesn't go through everyone one by one, reassuring her. This new situation causes him to cut to the chase in an uncharacteristically quick manner, though still with his usual furtive gentleness.

“Most of us are alright,” he says carefully, “But... Enjolras and Lesgles...” say it say it say it, there's no other way to put it, “They're dead.”


	7. Chapter 7

“They're dead.”

Jehan's expression is pained, but it's not new pain – it's the agony of a truth he's beginning to be used to. There's concern in his eyes, too; concern for her.

And Feuilly just looks at him, and goes on looking, because she doesn't know what else to do.

Enjolras is in her mind in a haphazard jumble of pictures – too-bright pictures, as though someone's turned up the saturation on a camera. Enjolras sitting on the grass on the school field, a book resting in his lap; Enjolras gesturing expansively as he picks apart some argument in a class debate. Enjolras with the smallest of smiles tugging at the corners of his mouth; Enjolras with his arms folded resolutely; with his brows descending in a frown. Enjolras, who was so full of ideas that she will never be able to remember precisely, because she doesn't have the words.

And then on the heels of this frayed and jumbled snarl of thoughts – Joseph Lesgles. His round, smiling face and his self-deprecating jokes. His laughter. That time he came to Mrs Bergham's and – (him – boy with black hair – M-something) laughed at him for tripping over a rugby ball and going flying. And how he hadn't cared, but instead had laughed along with him.

“Feuilly...” Jehan says, plaintively. He's watching her with a new kind of cautiousness. “They said it was quick – for Enjolras, I mean. That's something, I suppose; that he wouldn't have suffered.” But he's blinking back tears, himself, now. “He would've died instantly, they said.”

She sits very still and listens to him. It's too much.

“Lesgles (…) in the night (…) quietly (…) all got called out of class (…) I was really scared. I thought-” he breaks off, his breath hitching, “I thought the same thing would happen to you.”

Jehan's eyes are brimming over, now, tears tracking silently down his cheeks. His shoulders tremble, barely perceptibly.

“No,” Feuilly says, because the awful, cacophonous rush-tide of images and feelings drowns out everything else. And then again, because this word; the vehemence of it, seems to be the only adequate way to express any of what she's feeling. “No. Please, no.”

“I'm sorry – I didn't want to be the one to tell you,” Jehan presses his hands to his mouth. His voice is strangled, stoppered and thickened by tears. “Feuilly, please look at me.” Impulsively; reflexively, he reaches forward and takes her hands.

She does look up at him, then, still dry-eyed.

“Are they – have they - ” she's struggling; it's like looking for something you've lost, being sure you know where to find it and yet coming up short, “ - in church,” she tries, “In the ground.”

“Oh.” Jehan blinks, “Enjolras has. Lesgles' funeral isn't until later this week. His mother's asked me to read something, again, and I don't really want to, but I feel like...it wouldn't be fair, if I didn't.”

“Did you? For Enjolras?”

He nods, and lets go of her hands to swipe at his eyes.

Feuilly lets out a long, shaky breath. “It feels like they're not...feels like...they're still here.”

“I get that,” says Jehan heavily, “It doesn't feel real. Except for when I'm in school. Then it feels real, because Grantaire doesn't let any of us forget it for a minute.” He grimaces; glances away, as though he's spoken out of turn. “But, I know it's awful for Grantaire. Bahorel says (…) drinks more than F. Scott Fitzgerald, but (…) just tactless.”

She lets out a brief laugh, at that, and then stops herself abruptly, disgusted with herself.

And it's that, somehow; that moment of realisation, of sick horror, that makes this real. Her friends are dead.

This time, when she cries, she leans into the warmth of him. They cling together, Jehan's arm encircling her back. Feuilly's breathless sobs wrack her thin frame, and Jehan, quietly, cries too, his own tears falling onto her hair. Here in this small white room, the pair of them know a particular, bitter companionship; the cold, knotted bonds of a grief shared.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

“It was awful,” Jehan tells Combeferre and Courfeyrac, the next day at break-time, “I stayed with her until she fell asleep, and then Dad came and picked me up. I don't think she's really coping.”

Courfeyrac is shaking his head. “Seriously, though,” he says, vehemently, “I can't believe you told her. I mean, sorry Jehan, but what were you thinking?”

“Well, I couldn't lie to her, could I?” he sighs gustily, sinking lower in his seat. Around him, the school canteen is full of the usual clatter. He catches sight of Eponine Thenardier and Montparnasse, over by one of the vending machines. Montparnasse is wearing a grin and a leather jacket; Eponine looks sour and tired.

“I guess not, but God.”

Combeferre shoots him a warning glance. “Courfeyrac, you do realise you're making him feel bad?” Then, to Jehan, as Courfeyrac shrugs apologetically, “Of course she's not coping well. But you can't do any more than what you're already doing. Jehan, you spend most of your time with Feuilly. I think -” she breaks off, Grantaire having arrived. “You weren't in class, this morning,” she observes as the other girl drops into a chair.

Grantaire flicks an irritable glance in her direction. Combeferre, undeterred, goes on quietly:

“What's going on, Grantaire? I know you're -”

“You don't know,” Grantaire cuts her off, “You don't know anything. And you're not in any position to give advice. My mother's always all 'Why can't you be more like that friend of yours? Why can't you be more like Anna?'” She lets out a short bark of laughter. “We're a lot more alike than she thinks. You're a wreck.”

Combeferre raises her eyebrows at her as though to say 'Go on; I'm listening'. Which only serves to tug and pull Grantaire's sudden burst of irritation to greater heights.

“You obviously don't sleep much,” she continues, “And you don't eat. Do you think none of us have noticed? Is that your plan; to starve yourself to death so you can be with Enjolras, or something? All you do is work and walk around with that vacant look on your face like a machine. You know what? Everyone keeps taking to me about what Enjolras would want, and how I shouldn't throw my life away and whatever, but I don't see anyone talking to you like that. I don't see anyone telling you to get over yourself and move on. Oh no, because you're perfect. You never do anything wrong. Except that you're just as dead as Enjolras and you won't admit it.”

There is a pause, sharp and pressing, then:

“All right,” says Combeferre tightly, “If that's what you think.”

At her lack of physical reaction, Grantaire flares up.

“Yeah. That's what I think. You're a hypocrite. And you know what I think? I think you should follow your own advice before you go preaching to other people. Stop pretending to be all brave and strong and all that shit. You wallow in self-pity just as much as me – you're just not honest about it. Can you honestly tell me you actually wanted to get up this morning? Can you honestly tell me that you want to do anything at all? No? Might as well curl up and die, then, Combeferre, if that's the way it is. Might as well top yourself the way your mother tried to. That's what you're scared of, isn't it? Turning out like her. That's why you're all 'oh yeah look at me I'm just fine'. You're scared. And don't say you're not, because you are. You're fucking terrified.”

Combeferre, white-faced, draws in her breath sharply.

By contrast, Courfeyrac's face is flushed with barely suppressed agitation. “Leave her alone, will you?” he surprises Grantaire by saying heatedly. “She was just trying to help you.”

Grantaire snorts derisively. “Help. Yeah, I'm sure.” She doesn't miss the glance which Courfeyrac and Jehan share; it makes her stomach twist and her pulse quicken. Somehow, she's become the bad one, the villain, again.

“Don't be an idiot, Grantaire,” Courfeyrac says, but she is already standing again, pushing back her chair hastily and scrabbling for her bag. Her hands, to her surprise, are shaking. She straightens up and walks away without another word, and her friends stare after her in resigned silence.

“Got a thing about storming off dramatically, hasn't she?” says Courfeyrac after a moment, with forced brightness. Neither Jehan nor Combeferre return his smile.

-o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o0o-

Grantaire hasn't been to the hospital since the day after the accident, when she was discharged with a bottle of painkillers and a couple of steri-strips criss-crossing one another on her forehead. Being here again reminds her afresh of just why she's been so reluctant to go back. The place stinks of disinfectant; it climbs up her throat and she resists the urge to gag. And there's the sameness of everything, too – all those long corridors. You feel like you could easily get lost in here, and never find your way out.

It seems to take her forever to find Feuilly's room. It's on the third floor, and has one small window. Feuilly is alone when Grantaire arrives; she lies on her side, staring at the blank wall.

“Hey,” Grantaire says flatly, virtually collapsing into a seat and dumping her bag on the floor beside her.

Feuilly scrambles awkwardly into a sitting position. “Didn't think I'd see you,” she says, “Not soon.”

“Well, I'm not the most interesting visitor. I'm no Jehan,” Grantaire sniggers, “But I'll have to do. So, I hear your dad's a prize idiot. What a thing to wake up to.”

“He said for me to...live with him.”

Grantaire lets out a startled sound, somewhere between a laugh and a scoff. “Shit. What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

“Huh,” Grantaire taps her fingers ruminatively against the side of her chair. “I suppose I should warn you. You know people are talking about you, right?”

Feuilly stares at her.

“Montparnasse thinks you're 'backward',” she ploughs on, “Just so you know.” She's impelled by a desire to elicit some sort of strong reaction, without knowing why. Her nerves are raw and singing.

Something in Feuilly's face changes. The line of her mouth tightens.

“Don't care,” she says, unconvincingly.

Grantaire laughs. “Now you sound like me. Maybe I should trade lives with you. Then I can mope around in hospital and not say anything and no one will give a shit.”

Feuilly's eyes narrow. “Why did...why are you here?”

The question rankles. Even Feuilly, who God only knows doesn't have anyone else in the way of decent company right now, doesn't feel like having her around. And who can blame her, really?

Grantaire's lips twitch. “I'm sick of people whining at me,” she says, “I figured it was a fairly safe bet that you wouldn't.”

“I'm not an idiot!” the vehemence of this, half-shouted, takes Grantaire completely aback. “You're not – you won't – you won't be serious about me.”

And Grantaire, against her own better judgement, smirks and responds, “I think you mean 'take you seriously', Feuilly.” The moment she's said it, something akin to disgust writhes in the pit of her stomach and her throat constricts as though the words themselves are trying to claw their way back to where they came from. “I'm sorry,” she mutters, deflating.

In response, Feuilly says absolutely nothing.


End file.
